


Exile

by themegalosaurus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s14e12 Prophet and Loss, Family Issues, Fights, Gen, John smacks Dean, Pre-Season/Series 01, Teen Dean Winchester, Teen Sam Winchester, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester, just to warn for that specifically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 17:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17687885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus
Summary: "Sometimes when I was, when I was away, you know it wasn't cause I just ran out, right? Dad would, he would send me away, when I really pissed him off. I think you knew that."





	Exile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [juliasets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliasets/gifts).



> This was obviously inspired by Sam and Dean's car conversation in 14x12 and is also a birthday gift for the glorious juliasets, who helped me think through some of the ideas as I was writing it. Happy birthday, lovely lady! It's a very Dean-y gift for one Sam!girl to bestow on another but actually, I'd argue that Sam's very present in this present (as always in my stuff). 
> 
> Also, thank you to [BlindSwanDive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindswandive) for the speedy and helpful beta!

It's Sam's fault, actually, and it starts like this.

"Have you ever tried talking to a monster?" Sam says.

Beside Dean in the front seat, Dad tenses up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Instead of just killing them."

Dad tightens his grip on the steering wheel. Dean sits up and stares straight ahead, out through the windshield to where the highway is swallowed and swallowed under the wheels of the car.

"How do you know they're all bad?" Sam says from the back.

"We know they're bad because that's how we find them, dumbass," Dean says. "Because they're killing people." He looks into the rearview mirror, tries to catch Sam's eye so he can scowl at him, _shut up_. But Sam's looking sideways, out into the night, is half in his own head and he can't see the tell-tale drumming of Dad's thumbs.

"Yeah, but," Sam says. "What if they did it because they're scared? What if they don't know what they're doing? What if their pack-- their family made them do it? People don't always just do things because they want to do them."

Dean scoffs. "You gonna sit down with a chupacabra and talk it out?"

"Not a _chupacabra,_ " Sam says, "but there's others that are more-- some of them are like people."

"Oh, come on. They're not people," Dean says.

“Yeah, but--”

"All right," John says, sudden and loud enough that Dean almost startles. "That's enough."

"But Dad, I was just--"

" _En_ _ough,_  Sam."

"But--"

John stops the car, tyres screeching. He turns around to look Sam in the eye.

"If I hear another word from you before we get to Springdale, I'm going to leave you at the side of the road and you're going to walk the rest of the way."

Sam doesn't say anything. Setting his jaw, he reaches into his backpack and pulls out the book he's reading. It's a hardback thing in a plastic cover, stolen from some high school or library in the past few states. As far as Dean, glancing furtively behind him, is able to tell, Sam doesn't look up for the next two hours.

When they get to the motel, Sam unfolds himself silently from the back seat, grabs his bag and Dean's out of the trunk and drops them in their room without saying a word.

Dad frowns at him but it's Dean he looks at when he says, "I'm going for a drink. You boys get some sleep. We've got a lot to do tomorrow."

Once Dad's out the door Dean punches Sam hard in the shoulder. Sam yelps.

"What the fuck was that?" Dean says. "Why do you always gotta push his buttons?"

Sam glares at him. "I didn't do it on purpose. It's not such a stupid question."

"Oh, come on, Sam."

"You wouldn't just kill a person just like that. Even if they were a bad person. That's why we have the law, and trials, and prisons."

"Yeah, and fucking lethal injections," says Dean.

"Don't be a dick."

"Come on, Sammy," says Dean. "You've seen the shit these things do." People with their insides torn out of their stomachs. Children grey and shrivelled, the life sucked out of them. People decapitated, strangled, burned.

"I know," Sam says, "I know, I do. I just." He looks at Dean, not snarky now but direct, appealing. "Don't you ever worry about any of it?"

Something in Sam's plaintive tone makes Dean want to give in. He carefully squashes the impulse. "No," he says. "I trust Dad. Jesus, Sam, he knows what he's doing." Sam rolls his eyes and suddenly it’s easier; Dean can feel himself getting angry. "Christ's sake, Sam. Those things killed Mom."

"Oh, right," Sam says, glaring. "Thanks for reminding me. I forgot that Mom died. I forgot that all non-human creatures, ever, conspired together for the express purpose of killing her just to fucking piss Dad off and have him ruin our lives."

" _Non-human creatures_? Is that what we're calling them now?"

"What the fuck ever, Dean," says Sam. He goes into the bathroom and slams the door. By the time he comes out, Dean has the TV tuned into an old episode of the X-Files. Sam thinks Scully is hot. Dean looks at his brother, trying to figure out whether the fight is over and they can have a half-decent evening.

Apparently not. Keeping his face averted, Sam sheds his jeans and crawls into bed.

"Good night, then," Dean says loudly. He turns the volume up on the TV.

(Sam rolls over when Dean gets into bed three hours later. “Sorry,” he whispers. “Yeah,” says Dean, under his breath though they’re alone in the room. Dad still isn’t back. He kicks Sam’s feet, which are always freezing. “Just keep these away from me. We’re good.” Sam snuffles. Within minutes, his breath evens out into sleep.)

 

So that argument-- that's not the thing that's Sam's fault. Or, it is, but that's no big deal, it's like every other day of their life, Sam and Dad sniping and bickering and Dean trying his best to make the both of them shut up. No. What matters is what happens on the hunt four days later.

They're in a mortuary, looking for ghouls. Actually, Dean and Dad are in the mortuary and Sam's back at the motel, supposedly on research duty but actually in time out. Dad said he'd go crazy if he had to listen to Sam's bitching for another three hours. Dean half-suspects Sam planned the whole thing on purpose, kept up his relentless stream of complaining because he has some assignment to write or some friend to see or just because he's always trying to get out of what they do.

The ghouls they're hunting, two of them, have been in the area for the past few weeks, draining dead bodies from a string of towns, skipping from exit to exit down I-90. Tonight, they should be here in Livingston. That’s the theory, at least.

Cracking the back door, Dean finds the alarm system already disabled. But as he and Dad pace through the darkened corridors, machetes lifted, there's no trace of movement; no sound. The main mortuary is empty, undisturbed. Dean's already written the evening off as a bust when Dad points down the corridor to a sign marked 'Autopsy Room A'. As he starts heading towards it, Dad's phone starts buzzing, and when he glances back Dad’s stopped, his face dimly illuminated by the green glow of the screen. He gestures again towards the sign so Dean carries on going, just to check.

There's a body on the metal table in the middle of the room. It's draped in a sheet, pale blue in the dark-blue shadows. Dean closes the door behind him.

He's halfway around the table when he sees the girl crouching behind it. Her mouth is fastened over the corpse's wrist, its arm extended from beneath the sheet. She sees him at the same time and springs back, hands raised in front of her.

"Please don't kill me," she says.

She-- the body the ghoul is inhabiting-- is young, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Sam's age.

Dean's blood pounds loudly in his ears. He raises the machete, moves forward.

"He's dead," says the ghoul. "He doesn't-- I'm not hurting anyone."

"You're a bloodsucker," Dean says. It comes out more uncertain than he'd like.

"I'll leave right now," the girl says again, glancing sideways. "You'll never see me again."

Dean doesn't dare take his eyes off her. He doesn't move. He shifts his grip on the handle of his blade.

The girl's eyes are wide, her pupils white, her irises so black in this darkness she looks almost demonic. Dean could swear he can see her breathing.

Suddenly there's a crash from the corridor outside; a strangled shout, high-pitched and cut off short.

"Mom!" says the girl. She moves for the door but it's already opening, Dad's broad shoulders silhouetted in the light. There's a slick snick and her head slips sideways, falling to the ground with a thud. She crumples.

"You okay?" Dad says.

Dean realises that he's been holding his breath. He breathes out, shaky and uneven, and nods.

It only takes a split-second for Dad’s concern to evaporate. "Then why didn't you kill her?"

Dean can't say.

"Answer me when I ask you a question."

"Sorry, sir," says Dean. His hands are sweating. He feels sick. Dad could have been killed out there while Dean was-- what? Was in here hesitating, pussying out. "It won't happen again."

"You're right about that," Dad says. He steps forward and delivers Dean an open-handed slap across the side of the head. It's humiliating more than it is painful. "Now pick up that body," he says.

Dean slings the girl's headless corpse over his shoulders. He grips his fingers into her hair. The head drips blood all the way to the car. Dad makes Dean go back and clean it up.

They're salting and burning the bodies in a field fifteen minutes' drive away when Dad says, "I want you to go and help Jackson on a case."

"What? No," Dean says. Jackson lives in an isolated cabin in the mountains near the Canadian border. He has a mangy dog that smells and which cries all night on the porch outside, and he treats Dean like he's twelve years old and stupid. He's also brutal in a way that Dean finds disturbing. Once Jackson took him into the woods to show him a bear caught in a trap, metal teeth bitten vicious into its leg. "You should kill it," Dean had said, bruised by the animal's whimpers; and Jackson had said, "Don't you think it's something, to see it trapped that way?"

Dad is looking into the flames. His profile is outlined in radiant orange. Sparks reflect white and yellow in his eyes. "It's not a question."

"Is this--" Dean says.

Dad turns towards him. "That's enough, Dean. This is for your own good."

Fucking Sam.

When they get back into the car, Dad doesn't turn back towards the motel but heads north instead, up on route 89 towards the national forest.

"We're going now?" Dean says. Dad doesn't answer. "How long for?"

Dad doesn't answer that either. There is a lump in Dean's throat. Sam will. What will Dad tell Sam? Are Dad and Sam going to hunt without him? That's stupid, for both of them. They'll fight and fall out and someone will get killed. They need him. They need him.

They're halfway to Browning when Dad opens his mouth. "What does Sam say to you when I'm not there?"

"What?" Sam says a shitload of things. He bitches about the shitty motels they stay at, about the fact that half of his clothes are too small for him. He complains about the music that Dean likes and makes snarky comments about the girls Dean dates. He says that Dad is a bully and the life is stupid and, one time, that he wishes Dad had died instead of Mom. Dean smacked him for that. He also says funny stuff and smart stuff and - with a lessening frequency - cute stuff that makes Dean remember how awesome Sam was as a kid. Dean’s pretty sure Dad’s not asking about any of that.

"This business about... about monsters being like us. He talk about that?"

"No," says Dean slowly.

Dad clears his throat. "He ever try and make you do, uh, magic? Anything like that?”

“Only sigils and stuff. For a case or whatever.” Dean feels disloyal. “But you ask him to do that. What are you--?”

There's a long silence. “Forget it,” Dad says, and accelerates up the empty road.

They don’t talk again until they get to Jackson’s place. John doesn’t even come into the house, just drops Dean at the end of the two-mile drive and heads off into the sunrise. Dean doesn’t have anything with him; not his wallet, not a change of clothes. He kicks, futile, at the grass beside the road. He starts to walk.

 

Dad picks him up unannounced six and a half weeks later. Typical Dad, he arrives in the middle of the night; shakes Dean awake where he’s been sleeping on Jackson’s couch and shines a flashlight right in his eyes. “You ready to go?”

Dean’s been ready to go every night since Dad dropped him off. It takes him thirty seconds to put on his boots and then they’re out of there. Wouldn’t you know, Dad made the drive up to the house this time.

Sam isn’t in the car. For a split-second, Dean is poleaxed by the absolute conviction that Dad has killed him; that this whole thing has been in aid of getting Dean out of the way. If Dad did want to kill one of them this is how he’d do it. And then he’d never mention Sam’s name again.

“Your brother’s back at the motel,” Dad says, as Dean slides into the front seat.

Of course he is.

When Sam wakes up in the morning and sees Dean at the table, he turns white. But he doesn’t say anything, just looks at Dad wide-eyed and silent as he sits down to eat.

“Running this morning,” Dad says after. “Five miles. I’m timing you.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam says, and they both grab their sneakers. Sam sets out at a smart pace but as soon as they get a block away from the motel he stops and clutches at Dean’s elbow.

“Fuck, Dean,” he says. “Fuck, what happened? Dad wouldn’t tell me anything. I just woke up and. And he’s been like a machine since you left. I’ve done so many pushups, I can’t even fucking--” He reaches up to pull Dean into a hug, skinny arms around Dean’s shoulders, his head against Dean’s chest. “Don’t go away again,” he says.

Then he steps back and wrinkles his nose. “You smell like shit.”

Dean hasn’t showered in two weeks. He hasn’t touched anyone since Dad dropped him at the cabin. He can still feel the ghostly sensation of Sam’s ribs against his chest.

He swallows. “Course I smell,” he says. “Some of us have been hunting while you’ve been slacking off.”

“What?” Sam’s voice is suddenly small, uncertain.

“Come on,” says Dean. “Dad told us we needed to run.”

“But--” Sam says.

This is a test, Dean thinks. All of it. “You do what you like,” he says. “I take this seriously.” He turns around to start running, looks back over his shoulder. “People are dying,” he says.

“Whatever,” Sam says. “Jerk.”

Dean starts to run. Fort Benton is hardly a town but right now, it feels like civilisation. Dean is thankful for every mouldering concrete facade, every streetlight, every car. He’s had enough of the wilderness for a fucking lifetime. No thanks.

Behind him, he hears the slap of Sam’s sneakers against the asphalt. It’s the sweetest sound.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, guys. I know this isn't exactly John-positive but I guess I will say that everybody in this story thinks that they're doing what's necessary? I don't know. Your comments welcome as always!


End file.
